Thursday, November 29, 2012

The
introduction of the supine sleep position to reduce the prevalence of Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome has not altered the timing or sequence of infant rolling
abilities, say authors of an article published
online in Early Human Development. This information is valuable to health care
providers involved in the surveillance of infants' development, they add.
Original normative age estimates for these 2 motor abilities are still
appropriate.

The aim of this study was to compare the order and age
of emergence of rolling prone to supine and supine to prone before the
introduction of back to sleep guidelines and 20 years after their introduction.
The original normative data for the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) were
collected just prior to the introduction of back to sleep guidelines in 1992.
Currently these norms are being reevaluated. Data of rolling patterns of
infants 36 weeks of age or younger from the original sample (n=1,114) and the
contemporary sample (n=351) were evaluated to compare the sequence of
appearance of prone to supine and supine to prone rolls (proportion of infants
passing each roll) and the ages of emergence (estimated age when 50% of infants
passed each roll).

According to the results, the sequence of emergence
and estimated age of appearance of both rolling directions were similar between
the 2 time periods.

Comments

Interesting as I have noticed the opposite. Babies seem to be developing their flexor muscles first because they are in more sitting devices and seem to roll from supine to prone. many are not tolerating the prone position as easily as they are not often placed in that position...